Who is the 23rd Tirthankara?

Who is the 23rd Tirthankara? Parshvanatha is the 23rd Tirthankara of Jainism.

Parshvanatha preceded Mahavira and is traditionally regarded as the last Tirthankara before him. Jain accounts place his birth in Varanasi, while his liberation is associated with Sammed Shikhar, one of the religion’s most important pilgrimage sites. Traditional dating places him roughly in the 9th or 8th century BCE, though historians treat those dates cautiously.

Parshvanatha is especially significant because he is the earliest Tirthankara whom many scholars regard as having a historical core. Jain tradition credits him with teaching four major restraints: nonviolence, truthfulness, non-stealing and non-possession. Mahavira later expanded this framework by giving celibacy an explicit independent status.

His identifying emblem is a serpent, often shown forming a hood above his head. This can cause confusion with Rishabhanatha, whose emblem is a bull, or Mahavira, whose emblem is a lion.